Today has been a very relaxing day. We woke up late after my late night and went and enjoyed the breakfast again. This is where our tour ended. Midday the squad hopped on a bus to the port, bound for Athens. Midday we checked out and started the trek to our next hotel. We hadn’t had any exercise apart from swimming for a good while so I thought it was a grand idea to walk. Katy wanted to take the bus but it was only 2km and reluctantly agreed to walk through the 31 degree heat.
Safe to say we were both unhappy campers when we got halfway and had to stop for an iced tea and cool down. I was sweating on 100% of my body it was gross. Our packs both weigh in around 15kg so it makes it a decent workout in the heat.
Anyway, lucky this entire country is beautiful and our pit stop overlooked the beach. 
After generously tipping our waiter man 30c we pushed on for the last leg of our “hike” 😂 it wasn’t too far and thankfully down hill so before we knew it we were greeted by the lovely owner. He had a smile from ear to ear and knew us by name. I later found out this was because we were his only check-in for the day.
Katy and I agreed that a pool day was calling so we checked in and went to the pool for the day. We spent a good few hours by the pool reading books and listening to music. I wrote some of this blog and spoke to mum for over an hour which was lovely to catch-up. We shared a chicken/bacon club sandwich by the pool and I made friends with an older couple from Bristol, England who are here for 2 weeks and come to Ios once a year, minimum.
The married couple from Bristol stay at this same hotel every time and travel to one other island each visit, always different. Since they were basically local I asked them for a dinner recommendation down at the nearby port.
After a shower we headed to watch the sunset somewhere and pickup our ferry tickets for tomorrow. Our hotel owner gave us two bikes and pointed us in the direction of a good sunset (as if that wasn’t already obvious 😂). We got to a good spot but it was too cloudy so we turned around to go and get our ferry tickets printed. Even the rubbish sunset looked cool over the beach at the port.
Printing our ferry tickets was easy so we returned the bikes and walked back to our recommended dinner spot. It’s called “The Octopus Tree” and is very popular with the locals, obviously specialising in seafood. I ordered a calamari dish and Katy a tuna salad. I was told the calamari didn’t come with any sides so proceeded to order a “beetroot salad”. That sounds delicious right? … wrong!! It wasn’t a salad at all it was literally just pickled beetroot and nothing else 😂 maybe they struggle with anything that isn’t a Greek salad here haha. All was well I took some of Katy’s greens so my meal turned out to be delicious.
We grabbed an ice cream for the walk home and packed our bags ready for an early departure tomorrow for Milos.
🦑🐟 M
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